A synagogue does not exist to raise money. It exists to be a community.

Only about 30% of North American Jews are members of a temple or synagogue. While plenty of Jewish leaders bemoan the pitiful rate at which Jews support and participate in congregations, few mention one of the key reasons.

Unlike the houses of worship of other faiths, Jewish temples and synagogues in North America require their members to ante up large annual dues payments. For many congregations, dues are in the lofty neighborhood of $1,800 a year or more. Some large urban congregations have annual dues that are two or three times that amount.

Almost all congregations have a process to reduce dues for members who cannot reasonably afford the standard rate. Often, members seeking a reduction must meet with or write to congregational leaders to explain their need. Some congregations require them to provide documentation of their financial situation. For those who find that process humiliating, insulting or aggravating, the only alternatives are to pay full-freight or to not affiliate.

Anyone who has held a leadership position in a Jewish congregation should understand the ideas behind this system. The Temple needs money to exist and everyone has to pay his or her share. Without requiring members to give at a level that will allow the congregation to meet its budget, how could the congregation survive?

For a long time, this system worked. Many Jews thought of Temple dues as "the Jew tax" — the price that they were required to pay to make sure that there would be a place for them to worship, to give their children a Jewish education, and to bury their dead. It was part of the Jewish social contract. A few people always grumbled about it, but as long as their numbers were few, it did not matter.

There is increasing evidence, though, that this system is breaking down in the early 21st century. Many Generation X Jews no longer feel obliged to pay large amounts annually to be part of the Jewish community. For some, Judaism just isn't a high priority compared to other demands for their dollars. Others would prefer to pay for their Judaism à la carte, hiring a rabbi when they need a wedding, bar mitzvah or funeral. There are also Jews who say that synagogues and temples have become hypocritical, caring more about their members' money than about living a Jewish life. And it is not just the Gen Xers. I have heard plenty of Jewish grandmothers and grandfathers tell me that Temple dues are insulting.

Here is the truth as I see it: In some congregations, the present system of dues has become destructive to our mission. We are supposed to be promoting values of compassion, generosity and inclusion. But, sometimes, we are making people feel coerced into paying what they don't think they should have to pay. Our leaders often feel resentful toward Jews who don't "pay their share." We risk creating the impression that our congregations are country clubs. A religious organization cannot sustain itself if it harbors and promotes such coercion, resentment and negative impressions. If the institution of the synagogue is going to survive the 21st century, it has to adapt.Articles questioning the dues system in North American synagogues have appeared in eJewish Philanthropy, Reform Judaism Magazine, The Forward, The Washington Post, Newsweek, and The New York Times. Asking out loud if we should get rid of dues is no longer a cutting-edge or anti-establishment posture. It is the opening to a necessary conversation about the future of the Jewish community.

There is now a small movement of congregations that are asking just these questions. This spring, the congregation I serve joined them. We are scrapping dues.

Temple Beit HaYam in Stuart, Florida, recently sent a letter to its members announcing that it is changing from a dues system to a pledge system. Instead of telling members how much they have to pay, the congregation asks members to pledge the amount they wish to give as their annual financial commitment. Each year, the congregation will calculate the average level of giving needed to support its programs and services based on its budget, membership, and other sources of income. Members will be urged to try hard to reach or exceed the "sustaining amount," but each member family will decide for itself how much to give.

Also under the new system, families headed by adults under age thirty-five are asked to pay no more than $500 a year, no questions asked. Those are the folks who are going to build the congregation's future. We need them a lot more than we need their money.

Of course, adopting this system is risky. Everyone involved in the decision to do away with dues worried that, given the choice, many members would pay less. The results so far, though, have validated our hopes, not our fears. A large majority of those who have responded to the letter have committed to give to the Temple at the sustaining level or to exceed it. Phew. We really do have a generous congregation where people care about community. I think that most congregations are like that.

I am not advocating this exact system for every congregation. It is entirely possible that our congregation will need to adjust the new system in the coming years. It is still early in what I believe will be a new chapter of the history of the North American Jewish community. Congregations are different and every community will need to do what works best for itself. Yet, I applaud our congregation's lay leaders for trying something new to respond to a real change in our society.

The purpose of a Jewish congregation is not to raise money. It is to celebrate our tradition, to find joy in being a community of compassion and giving, and to express our yearning for God. When the workings of our institutions get in the way of those goals, we need to find a way to do things better. When we unintentionally turn so many Jews away from our congregations, we need to open the doors and let them in.

The Jewish prayerbook — the siddur -- is a rich and dense work. What began in ancient times as a simple collection of biblical quotations and blessings, expanded as one generation after another added new layers. After two thousand years of accumulated poetry, prose and spiritual insight, we now have a prayerbook that reads like a conversation among hundreds of ghosts who lived in eras scattered over the centuries.

The many layers of the prayerbook, though, can sometimes be paralyzing for those who seek a meaningful prayer experience. There are so many words that one is supposed to say, and there are so many rules regarding how and when to say them. Some of the language of the traditional prayerbook is extraordinarily difficult and many of the references are obscure. Very few Jews have real mastery over it all. The very density of our tradition, paradoxically, can be the greatest barrier to experiencing it.

And sometimes it is the literal weight of our thick prayerbooks that pulls us down! Mishkan T'filah, the prayerbook used by the congregation I serve, weighs in at two pounds and eleven ounces. If you caught a largemouth bass that big, you could feel proud to hang it on the wall. It can be hard to have a spiritual experience when you feel weighed down by a book that bends back your wrists.

Last Friday night at Temple Beit HaYam, we tried an experiment to reduce some of the figurative and literal weight. We left our prayerbooks on their shelves and, instead, experienced a slimmed-down service in which the words were projected onto a screen. Some of the slides used in the service also contained images connected to the themes of the prayers. Our hands were left free.

The service was designed to inspire new ways of experiencing prayer and connecting with the ancient words of the prayerbook — even without a physical prayerbook present. We sang. We meditated. We danced. We watched the waters of the Red Sea part as we rejoiced over the words the Israelites sang when they were saved from Pharaoh's army.

Our congregation is calling this our "Hands Free" service. Since it was received well, we probably will offer it a few times a year. The same style of worship goes by other names at other congregations. The most common name in the Reform Movement is "Visual T'filah." Members of our congregation found that worshipping this way had advantages beyond simply taking a load off our laps.

For example, there is a long-standing tradition in our congregation of standing and holding hands during the Sh'ma. For as long as the congregation has been doing this, there has been an awkward moment when we put down the prayerbooks and try to balance them carefully on the armrests. At Friday night's service, congregants reached for each other's hands more easily and naturally as we joined to declare God's unity. Also, because the screen let us pray with our heads up — not buried in the book — we could make eye contact with each other and remember that we worship together as a community.

The screen also allowed me to display visual images during the sermon to help make my points. In an age when people are used to getting so much of their information by looking at a screen (you're doing it right now), the Hands Free service gave me a new tool to hold congregants' interest and to connect with them.

I will admit that I am a bit of a technophile and design geek. I enjoy a chance to play with computers and to experiment with different ways to present prayer on the screen. Creating this service was fun for me. I think there are a lot of Jews — particularly young ones — who will enjoy this marriage of Judaism and technology for similar reasons.

I know, though, that some will find that technology is a barrier to experiencing Shabbat the way they want to experience it. The mesmerizing quality of television, computers, smartphones and tablets is what distracts us from mindful awareness during so much of the rest of the week. Some people will ask: Why should we subject ourselves on Shabbat to yet another screen? I am very sympathetic to that concern.

Yet, I also think that there are ways we can use technology to make our worship deeper, more spiritually satisfying, and more joyful. Modern technology can seem threatening, but, at one time, moveable type also seemed like a threat. In time, we came to know that it is a powerful tool to enrich our lives. There is room to explore ways to use today's technology — the same technology that sometimes distracts us — to help us pay better attention to things that matter the most.

If putting the prayerbook up on a screen were just a gimmick — a novelty to attract temporary attention — I would be the first to say that it would not be worthwhile. I think it can be much more than that, though. Our capacity for spiritual experience is not stimulated only by words. We are visual creatures and we can respond with insight, wonder and delight when we translate the ideas of the prayerbook into images. We may even find that visual queues will bring some of the complex and abstruse world of the siddur to life for more people.

Okay, I admit it. I am not overjoyed by the announcement of the birth of the future heir of the British throne. I do wish the new mum and dad all the best with their spanking new lad, but I don't join other Americans in finding this royal moment intoxicating. The romance with royalty and the pageantry of it all are lost on me. Sorry.

As an American, I am a firm republican (that's with a decidedly lower-case "r") and find the whole institution of royalty and its privileges a bit grotesque. Even the quaint anachronism just seems silly to me. It belongs in the world of make-believe, like at a Renaissance festival. (Now, those are fun!) To take it all so seriously, though,…well it's not my cup of four o'clock tea and crumpets.

I sense, though, that it is not just good old American anti-monarchist values that account for my feelings about the royal birth. I think there is also somethingJewish about the way I view these things. First of all, let's remember that Jews have not always had great experiences with the monarchs of the lands in which we have lived. Edward I expelled us from England. Ferdinand and Isabella threw us out of Spain. Don't even get me started with the Tzar.

But there is another Jewish truth at work here. Judaism is, at its core, skeptical of the notion that any group of people have the right to unearned privilege based on birth. In this week's Torah portion (Ekev), Moses chided the Israelites against ever believing that they deserved the wealth to which they were born, or even the wealth they accumulated in life. Moses mocked them and warned them against saying to themselves, "It is my power and the might of my hand that have won this wealth for me!" (Deuteronomy 8:17).

To be a Jew is to know that whatever you have is yours only because God has provided it for you. Everyone who comes into this world comes only because of an incalculably valuable gift that has been given to us without our deserving. Whatever wealth we create is just interest earned off of that gift. It is the height of arrogance for any human being to congratulate his or herself for anything achieved, gained or created in life. All of what we have is due to a power beyond ourselves. No one — not a prince, queen or king — can make a greater claim of deserving than anyone else.

I have heard wonderful stories, as you have, about members of royalty who have proven their nobility by recognizing this truth. We are moved by the king who proves through his actions that he understands deeply the obligation of the ruler to serve his people. However, Jewish tradition teaches that we all have the same potential for that nobility. The Torah calls us an Am Segulah, "A Treasured People," and a Mamlechet Kohanim, "A Kingdom of Priests," to make this point. We are all princes and princesses who can achieve our highest nobility through acts of the greatest humility.

And here is another teaching from this week's Torah portion about the birth of princes. Moses reminds us of the sign of the covenant between God and Israel — the circumcision that Jewish men wear upon the organ that connects one generation to the next. Moses compares the cutting of the foreskin to the cutting of the "the thickening around your hearts" (Deuteronomy 10:16). To be in covenant with God means the rejection of power and privilege. It means "to do justice for the orphan and widow, and love the stranger, giving him bread and clothes" (Deuteronomy 10:18). Jews come into this world — not with pomp and circumstance — but with a reminder of our duty to identify with the lowly. So, bully and huzzah for new Prince What's-His-Name! Long may the studs on his starched collar shine! If it pleases you to kvell at his birth, let it be as a reminder that you, too, dear Jew, are a prince or a princess. You have the honor of being a servant of the Most High!

This is the sermon I am presenting tonight at Temple Beit HaYam in Stuart, Florida.

You may remember that, ten years ago, the Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, Roy Moore, placed a enormous monument displaying the Ten Commandments in front of the Alabama Supreme Court building. A federal court ordered Moore to remove the edifice, ruling that it violated the U.S. Constitution’s Establishment Clause.

If you recall, the first of the Ten Commandments states, “I the Lord am your God.” The federal court ruled — correctly in my view — that a Buddhist, a Hindu, or, for that matter, an atheist, could certainly see the monument as a statement that his or her beliefs would not be honored in that court of law. Our legal system and our government are supposed to work equally for everyone — people of all religions and people of no religion. Statements about which deities we ought to worship have no place at the courthouse steps.I remember thinking, at the time when Chief Justice Moore was fighting for this religious monument, ‘Has this guy ever even read the Ten Commandments?’ Quite prominent on the list of "divine dos and don’ts" is a statement about idolatry and graven images. The Torah seems quite clear that God does not like it when people revere objects as if they were God. That, it seemed to me is exactly what Moore was doing. In all of his statements opposing the federal court order, he argued that federal judges were placing themselves against God. Moore seemed to believe that opposing his statue was the same as opposing God, or, perhaps, that opposing him was opposing God. Either way, that’s a big no-no according to the second commandment. Only God is God — not a piece of stone and certainly not Chief Justice Moore. Back in 2003, Moore was removed from office for his refusal to heed the federal court order. Unfortunately, the story does not end there. Predictably enough, he has sought to pedal his defeat on this hot-button issue into a political career. He has run, unsuccessfully, for governor of Alabama, and even has tinkered with the idea of running for President. Last year, he did win election to return to his former office as the Alabama Supreme Court’s Chief Justice. God help the great state of Alabama. It has been ten years since the episode with Moore and his giant marble monument of the Ten Commandments. Why should I bring it up now? Well, for one thing, in the last ten years, efforts to confuse the roles of religion and government have become even more common. We have seen attempts to circumvent some of the requirements of the federal Affordable Care Act on the basis of religion. Some employers have claimed that they have the right to deny access to reproductive healthcare to their employees because it offends their religion. Never mind that the law does not require any employers to pay for reproductive healthcare benefits, and never mind that the employers are not the ones who would receive the care they oppose. Here in the early Twenty-First Century, the right to freedom of religion enshrined in the U.S. Constitution is being turned by some into the right to impose ones religion on others and to inflict ones beliefs onto other people's bodies. I have also noticed that the people in government who most loudly trumpet their love of God, tend to be very selective about which of God’s words they want to put into our laws. Opponents of same-sex marriage are very ready to quote Scriptures that call it an “abomination” for a man to lie with another man, but they never propose laws to ban other practices that the Bible also calls “abominations” — eating shellfish for example. Are they really trying to impose God's law, or just their selective reading of it? In another example, the opponents of Immigration Reform never tire of talking about the threat to our nation posed by “outsiders” who “don’t share our culture and values.” They never seem to reflect, though, on God’s commandment to “love the stranger for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Deuteronomy 10:19). There is good stuff in the Bible for those who care to listen to it. And that brings me back to the Ten Commandments. Repeatedly in this week’s portion, Moses implores the people to observe all of the commandments, not just the ten engraved on the two tablets. He says, “Observe them faithfully, for that will be proof of your wisdom and discernment to other peoples, who on hearing of all these laws will say, ‘Surely, that great nation is a wise and discerning people’” (Deuteronomy 4:6).

This verse gives us a clue about how we can know if our secular laws based on the Bible are correct. When we do as God wants us to do, Moses says, the proof is not in the way we slavishly obey the Bible's words even if they don’t make sense to us. The proof of God’s commandments, according to Maimonides, Judaism’s greatest philosopher, is that they do make sense. Even those who come from outside our tradition will look at our laws and say, “What a noble and wise people those Jews are. They follow laws that actually make their people better and that make the world a better place.” If there is anything that members of Congress should look at in the Bible when they consider our nation’s policies, it should be that. Our laws should actually make sense and they should make us a wiser, nobler, and more compassionate society. Our laws should make our nation the kind of place that we are proud to uphold as a model to other nations — not because of our material success or our military might, but because of our devotion to equality and justice. I see nothing in the Bible that tells us that we should build a nation on laws that impose the religion of some people on everyone else, but I see plenty that says that we should build our nation on concern for the plight of the poor, love of the stranger, and defense of the rights of the weak against the power of the mighty. Ultimately, though, the laws of the Bible are not meant primarily for governments and politicians. They are meant for individuals. They are for people. They are for us. God and Moses did not give the Ten Commandments to frame public policy debates nearly as much as they gave them to help us make good choices in our own lives. So often, I hear people say, “Rabbi, I may not be religious, but I follow the Ten Commandments.” To such people I want to say, “That’s fine. Just make sure that you read them occasionally.” Just as I ask Chief Justice Moore, I ask you: Know what the Ten Commandments ask you to do: 1) “I am Adonai your God” — Know that you are not the center of the universe. Know that there is something beyond yourself to which you owe ultimate allegiance, even when it is inconvenient or against your desires. 2) “You shall have no other gods” — Do not turn objects, people or your desires into false gods. Let only God be God and don't pretend that your version of God is the only one for everyone else. 3) “You shall not swear falsely by the Name of God” — Make your mouth a temple of truth. Make every word you utter a testimony to your values.

4) “Observe the Sabbath and keep it” — Create room in your life for rest. Make Shabbat a treasure for yourself and for your family. 5) “Honor your father and mother” — Put the honor of your elders ahead of your own honor. Teach your children to do the same. 6) “You shall not murder” — Live a life that respects the lives of others, no matter how different they are from yourself. 7) “You shall not commit adultery” — Regard your intimate relationships as a sacred bond. Be true to your partner — with regard to your sexuality, your emotional life, and your personal integrity. 8) “You shall not steal” — Treat the property of others with even greater respect than you would wish others to treat your property. 9) “You shall not bear false witness” — Demand the highest level of justice. Even when the accused is someone you disfavor, honor your commitment to fairness and equality for everyone. 10) “You shall not covet” — Be mindful of the way that our brains can trick us into justifying the pursuit of our desires. Do not become a slave to thoughts about wanting things that are bad for you, or that are not yours to have. If we say that we are good people, and that we want to be good people, we have to live it in our own lives first. Religion is, first and foremost, about working on ourselves, not imposing our rules on others.

Judaism has a lot more than ten commandments, but, if you want to say that you live at least by the ten that are written on the doors of the ark in our sanctuary, be sure you know what they say. Be sure to take them seriously and make them more than an idol. Make them the foundation of your life. Shabbat shalom.

I had a friend in college named Ray. He was a good guy. He had a lot of the qualities I thought I lacked when I was in college. Ray was good looking, athletic and charismatic. He was a running back on the school's football team. He loved to hang around with attractive women, and they seemed to love hanging around him, too.

Ray also was smart and had a good heart. He and I were allies in student government. We worked together on a campaign to get our school to divest from companies that did business in South Africa. It was a strategy to put pressure on a racist, apartheid government that kept black-skinned and mixed-raced Africans in second-class status and made their lives miserable.

I was very proud of the work that I did with Ray and many others in college. We were a small part of the anti-apartheid movement, but we made a difference. I was proud also of my friendship with Ray, a guy who was very different from me, and also very much the same.

Why am I remembering Raynard T. Davis, Oberlin College class of 1985, today? Because he was murdered in April of 1999 in his hometown of Washington, D.C. He was then, like me at the time, 32 years old. He was stabbed in his apartment by some men who had come to talk to him about the car he was trying to sell.

Ray was one of hundreds of black men murdered in Washington during the period from 1998 to 2008. During that decade, the murder rate for black people in our nation's capital was more than 50 per 100,000 residents, ten times the rate for white residents. In the years since, the murder rate for black men in Washington has improved greatly, as it has for people of all races and genders. Yet — there is no nice way to put this — it is still dangerous to be a young black man in America.

Of course, I also am thinking about Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old who was fatally shot 17 months ago by George Zimmerman in Sanford, Florida, less than a two-and-a-half hour drive from my home. As you know, Zimmerman was acquitted two days ago on all charges.

There is a great deal of difference between Martin and my friend, Ray. Trayvon Martin was in high school. Ray Davis was a promising graduate student at Howard University. Trayvon was killed by a neighborhood watch coordinator who may have believed that he was trying to protect his community. Ray was killed by a couple of guys who wanted to get the small clutch of bills in his wallet. Lots of differences, but also very much the same.

There is a catastrophe in our country built on lingering racism, a growing appetite for guns and violence, and the way that the lives of young black men are devalued. I don't really know what happened on the night of February 26, 2012, in Sanford, Florida (and neither do you). However, I don't need to tell you how differently the verdict would have been if a young black man claimed to have acted in self-defense when he killed a neighborhood watch volunteer. Do I?

Today, I am also thinking about Tisha B'Av, the holy day that begins tonight at sunset. This is a day for mourning the catastrophe of our broken world. On Tisha B'Av, we weep for the shattering of the link between heaven and earth and how our world is so painfully far from what we would wish for ourselves and for our children. Today, as I remember my friend, and as I think about recent events, I feel heartsick.

There is a tradition of concluding the meal on the afternoon before Tisha B'Av with a hard-boiled egg dipped in ashes. The ashes recall the mourning of our ancestors as they watched the holy city of Jerusalem and its Temple burn. The egg itself, though, is a symbol of two things. Because eggs become harder when cooked, they remind us that our sorrows should toughen us to face the challenges of tomorrow. The egg's shape reminds us that life turns in many cycles — hope may yet be born from sorrow.

I have eaten my egg dipped in ashes. I am ready for the fast to begin. I also am ready to hope that the cycles of hatred, violence and cold-heartedness may be overcome. I am stiffening my resolve today to do my part to make a difference.

On an unusually rainy day in South Florida, a small group of volunteers met at a church today to prepare a meal for sixty men, women and children in need of a hot meal. The volunteers included some of the members of the congregation I serve, as it does on every second Sunday of the month. We call it "Souper Sunday," and it is always a fun and a fulfilling time. This week, it seemed particularly appropriate.

This past Shabbat, we read the third and final "Haftarah of Affliction," the readings that prepare us for Tisha B'Av, which begins Monday night. The passage from Isaiah tells us that we should not offer empty and insincere worship to God, but rather, "Learn to do good. Devote yourselves to justice; aid the wronged" (Isaiah 1:17). I like to think that the spaghetti and meatballs, the chicken and tuna salad sandwiches, and the garlic bread we made today were more than a filling meal for the hungry; they also were a way of responding to God's call for justice.

Tisha B'Av was instituted in ancient times to mark the anniversary of the destruction of the First and Second Temples. But the day means a great deal more than that. The fast is not just to bemoan a tragedy that happened to our people long ago. It also is a day to grieve for a world that is heart-breakingly far from the world of our highest hopes.

We fast on Tisha B'Av because there are too many people who don't have enough to eat. We mourn because we ourselves are in disrepair if we do nothing to aid the wronged. We observe this day because the link between heaven and earth is severed and it can only be mended by our action putting the world to rights.

On Monday night, Jews across the world will sit in darkened sanctuaries and read the book of Lamentations about the destruction of Jerusalem more than 2,500 years ago. We will read it, not as a history lesson, but as a message for today. (Our service at Temple Beit HaYam will start at 7:30 p.m. Please come for one of the most powerful and moving services of the year).

It is true that there is an uneasy relationship between Reform Judaism and Tisha B'Av. Some of the early leaders of the Reform movement noted that we have no desire to return to the days of the Temple and its animal sacrifices. They said that we should do away with Tish B'Av. One Reform rabbi even proposed turning it into a day of celebration. (We'll discuss that on Monday night). But I think we need to mourn on Tisha B'Av, now as much as ever.

Is it too much? Is it too much to ask that we have one day of the year to weep for all the hungry, to mourn the victims of violence, and to pour our hearts out in our hope for a better world? That is what Tisha B'Av is for me. It is a day to renew our devotion to aid the oppressed and to rediscover the joy of bringing justice into the world. We grieve on one day of the year so that we will be better able to act on the other 364.

This week, I participated in a retreat of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality for rabbis, cantors and other Jewish professionals. I've written about IJS before and the great work the organization does to develop Jewish leaders with skills to draw Jews toward a deeper spiritual love of Judaism. I recommend IJS's programs to everyone.

The featured teacher at the retreat was Dr. Daniel Matt, one of today's foremost scholars of Jewish mysticism. He is currently working on the first-ever complete English translation of the Zohar, the most important text of Jewish mysticism. The first seven volumes of the twelve-volume project have been published.

I'd like to share with you one text we studied this week that has special meaning for me. It is a fable from the Zohar about a man who lived in the mountains who came, for the first time in his life, to see the way people lived in the city. The man who lived in the mountains ate a diet of raw wheat kernels, so he was puzzled when the city people gave him good bread to eat.

"What is this?" he asked.

The city people answered, "It's bread. It's for eating."

He ate it and it was very good. He asked, "What is it made of?"

They told him, "It's made from wheat."

Later, they brought the man cakes of flour mixed with oil. He tasted them and asked again, "What are these made of?"

Again, the people told him, "They are made from wheat."

Afterwards, the city people gave the man pastry fit for a king made with oil and honey. The man asked, "What is this made of?"

They answered, "It's made from wheat."

The man then said, "Enough. I am the master of all of these things, for I eat the essence of all of them — wheat!"

This is what he thought, but actually he knew nothing of the world's delights. It was lost on him. Thus it is for one who grasps an idea, but knows nothing of the delights that flow from it. (Sefer HaZohar 2:176a-b)

What is this story really about? It is about Torah. There are those who know every letter of the Written and Oral Law (the Torah and the rabbinic teachings), but who have no feel for the underlying secrets of God and creation. That mysterious, mystical truth that underlies everything is the delicious, sweet, sticky baklava of reality, and it is so easy to miss it if all you care about is getting to the "essence." It is easy to ignore if all you know, and all you care to know, is raw kernels of wheat.

Surely, the Zohar included this story as a polemic against fundamentalism. The Zohar detests literal readings of the Torah and it derides Judaism that is only about fulfilling mitzvot as if they were boxes to check off on a to-do list. The Zohar demands that we probe the deepest recesses of Torah to find the secret path to encounter God intimately. Nothing else will suffice.

It seems to me that the story also can be read as a dialogue between two different views of human nature and the universe. One view says that our most essential state — the base-line of our soul — is one of neutrality. It is the flavor of raw wheat kernels. Life, as it were, is a blank canvass upon which we may paint positive or negative responses to whatever we might experience. The essence of our existence, though, according to this view, is the equivalent of white noise. The universe is uninterested in us. It is up to us to provide the meaning, the purpose, the color, and the flavor of reality.

The other view says the opposite. It says that the universe is filled with mystery and our most essential state is to be in wonder and ecstasy of all that surrounds us. There are delights beyond the veil of ordinary experience that surpass our imaginings — and those delights delight in our finding them. The universe is intensely interested in us. It is waiting for us to fulfill the meaning and purpose it has waiting for us. Our spiritual baseline, so to speak, is joy — rapturous joy — that is only waiting for us to taste it. Life is like a box of baklavah.

Which view of the universe do you hold in your life? What flavors linger in your mouth as you go through the day-to-day activities of your existence?

I want to suggest that our tradition comes down squarely on the latter view. We are here to be joyful. Happiness is our most basic state. Look in the eyes of a newborn and you will see it there. Happiness may be hidden from us at times — sometimes long stretches of time — but it is always there, waiting for us.

If you would like to read more texts like the Zohar's story of the "Mountain Man" for yourself, I encourage you to get a copy of Matt's book, The Essential Kabbalah. I have used it on several occasions, most recently last winter, in teaching Jewish mysticism to adults. A recent Hebrew edition of the book, called Lev HaKabbalah, is also available. It gives the original Hebrew and Aramaic texts of the passages in the earlier book. Taste its delectable fruits with joy.

I spent part of my morning today at the Sewall's Point Independence Day Bicycle Parade. It was great to see children and their parents, on foot and on bicycles, dressed up in red, white and blue, following a police car playing "Stars and Stripes Forever" on its loudspeaker. It was everything the Fourth should be — simple, fun, and full of patriotic joy.

Taking pride in one's country is not difficult or unusual for Jews. Since the Middle Ages, Jewish prayerbooks have included prayers for the nation in which the community resides and for its government. Historically, many of these prayers have been tailored for a particular Jewish community, even mentioning the name of the king or the branches of the government and wishing them success. Because the establishment of a just government is a fundamental requirement of Jewish law, Jews have sensed a duty to pray for the wellbeing of their national leaders and the health of their nation.

Never before, though, have Jews had more reason to feel devotion and love for a non-Jewish nation than Jews in the United States feel for their country today. This country has given Jews all the rights enjoyed by other citizens. No country in human history has done more to protect the rights of religious minorities than the United States. As a result, Jews have thrived in this country.

Would you believe that there is a minyan of ten Jews in the U.S. Senate today? (They are: Richard Blumenthal [D-CT], Barbara Boxer [D-CA], Ben Cardin [D-MD], Diane Feinstein [D-CA], Al Franken [D-MN], Carl Levin [D-MI], Bernie Sanders [I-VT], Brian Schatz [D-HI], Charles Schumer [D-NY], and Ron Wyden [D-OR]). There are 22 Jewish members of the House of Representatives, including the Majority Leader, Eric Cantor (R-VA). Three of the nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court are Jews (Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan). Nearly as much as Jews have embraced being Americans, America has embraced the Jewish people.

American Jews sometimes feel squeamish about pointing out the success we have enjoyed in this country, as if somebody might point a finger at us and say, "That's too much." There was a time when Jews felt rightly vulnerable to such accusations. Today, though, I feel that the scales have tipped. The vast majority of Americans, I believe, see the success of the Jewish people in this country as a sign of our country's greatness. While the rest of the world was expelling us from their borders, imprisoning us in ghettos, or keeping us impoverished with oppressive sanctions, it was the United States that benefited itself by giving the Jewish people the freedom to succeed.

Jews have a lot of reason to feel joyful about living in "the land of the free and the home of the brave." On this sunny and beautiful Fourth of July, we rejoice in a country that does more than any other to protect religious freedom, and a country to which the Jewish people have contributed so much.

This is the second of the three weeks leading up to Tisha B'Av, the most sorrowful day of the Jewish year. The three weeks are called the t'lat d'furanuta, "the three weeks of affliction." On each Shabbat during these weeks, we read a haftarah in which the prophets rebuke Israel for failing to keep faith with God, but promising redemption for Israel if it returns to God.

In the opening of this week's haftarah, God ask a rhetorical question. "What wrong did your ancestors find in Me that they distanced themselves from Me, went after empty things, and thus became empty themselves?" (Jeremiah 2:5). The image is clear. When we run away from things of real value in life and chase after illusions, we become delusional. Empty pursuits yield empty lives.

That is a rebuke that should make each of us more than a bit uncomfortable. Who will deny that his or her life has more than its share of empty pursuits? I think about the energy I put into learning about the latest electronic gadgets and the time I spend following the ups and downs of sports teams. Is Jeremiah speaking to me? Is he reminding me that my time is better spent with family, community and making a difference in people's lives? Is he saying that I am digging a hole of emptiness in my life? What is he telling you?

We know it's true. We see it in others and, when we are being honest, we see it in ourselves. When people spend their time preoccupied with triviality, vanity and self-indulgence, they become trivial, vain, and…well…unhappy. When we look at our own lives, we realize that our greatest joy comes from moments focused on the things that are meaningful — building relationships, working for the good of others, sharing what we have, loving and being loved.

You can toss the rest. Happiness is filling up our otherwise empty hours with things that matter.

Jeremiah tells us this is what it truly means to be close to God. It's not about mouthing prayers or fulfilling empty rituals. God is what we experience when we connect with others — when we make our lives matter by doing things that matter. Then, instead of distancing ourselves from God, we draw close.

And Jeremiah reminds us that the rewards are very great. In the conclusion of this week's haftarah (according to Sephardic practice), we read, "If you return, O Israel…and swear by the living God in truth, justice and righteousness, then nations will find blessing in you…" (Jeremiah 4:1-2). When we attach ourselves to God by acting truthfully, justly and righteously, we not only secure our own happiness, we bring blessing to others.

So try it. The next time you find yourself filling up your time with things that don't really matter, make a different choice. Turn off the screen, put down the video game, stop the preening and posing. Instead, make the choice to do something — something that matters and brings blessing to the world.

Welcome

This blog is about living a joyful Jewish life and bringing joy to synagogues and the Jewish community. Join the conversation by commenting on posts and sharing your experiences. For more on the topic, read the First Post.